HP dv2000 audio input problem?

Hi everyone,
My computer is an HP dv2000z notebook, and the audio is powered by Conexant SmartAudio HD2 Audio drivers. The audio output functions have always worked flawlessly- whether using headphones through the stereo jack, the integrated speakers, or standard desktop speakers. Shortly after I purchased my notebook, I decided to upgrade it to Vista x64 Ultimate. The audio inputs, even though I uninstalled the audio drivers and re-installed them several times (using the drivers on the HP website for my notebook), did not work- the jack for handheld array microphones did not detect any normal audio, and neither did the embedded mics on either side of the webcam. For a while, my recordings all sounded like earsplitting, garbled feedback, but I discovered how to fix this by disabling audio enhancements in the microphone properties menu. Since then, I had no problems with that terrifying noise when I played back recordings- however, recordings now produced nothing at all. Just silence. I double-checked time and again to make sure that the microphone volume was all the way up, and that the device was not muted (especially after realizing that the mute has a tendency to re-mute itself the first time you set the default to on). Then, about two weeks ago, I bought more memory and a new hard drive for my computer. Wanting to fix this problem, and since it was a convenient time, I did a complete reinstall of Vista, keeping basically only what was in My Documents. However, the problem persisted. The microphone device is enabled and set as the default...when I decided to get around this problem just by purchasing a Bluetooth headset for use with Skype calls, I thought that all my audio input problems would be resolved. But to my dismay, even after setting up the audio gateway between my computer (with integrated Bluetooth) and the headset, and setting the headset as the default input device, while I could hear a beep on the headset indicating that a call had been started, my computer was not detecting any input. The equalizer next to the icon for Headset Microphone, above the Conexant Microphone device in the list, did not register any green bars on the volume level. Its volume is also turned to the highest and unmuted, and it says the device is 'working.' I thought that since Conexant and Bluetooth drivers were not at all related, using an audio input that relied on Bluetooth would circumvent the problem...but this was not the case. Is there any way I can resolve this complete failure of my audio inputs? It seems like it's probably a driver issue, but I'm not sure. Just today I had to roll back an update called "Simplo Webcam" which disabled my embedded HP webcam, and now it works. But obviously, I can't just roll back my Conexant driver, since it's never worked for audio -in. Hmm and what about Bluetooth? Hopefully there's some solution for this!